To the east, nothing new. After more than 50 days of fighting, war is still raging in Ukraine. But after fighting in almost the entire country, the Russian army has opted for a new strategy and is concentrating on the capital, kyiv, as well as on the East and in particular the Donbass and the strategic port of Mariupol.
Lviv bombed
Despite this concentration on kyiv and the Donbass, the other cities are not entirely spared. This Monday morning, several “powerful” Russian missile strikes hit Lviv, located in western Ukraine and usually relatively spared from the fighting, announced the mayor and an adviser to the presidency.
A resident of southwest Lviv told AFP he saw thick plumes of gray smoke rising into the sky behind apartment buildings. The mayor of the city, Andriï Sadovy, indicated on Telegram that the helpers went on the spot. For his part, the military governor asked the population to stay safe this Thursday morning.
“The Russians continue to barbarously attack Ukrainian cities from the air, cynically declaring to the world their straight to… kill Ukrainians”, lambasted Mikhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, on Twitter. Close to the Polish border and located far from the front, Lviv became a city of refuge for displaced persons and at the start of the war hosted several Western embassies transferred from kyiv.
According to the region’s military governor, Maksym Kozytsky, the strikes left at least seven people dead and eleven injured, including a child. They targeted, in particular, a military infrastructure which was “seriously damaged”, he said on Telegram.
Russia communicated later in the day, claiming to have destroyed with “high precision missiles” a large depot of foreign weapons delivered recently. “The logistics center and large batches of foreign weapons, delivered to Ukraine in the last six days by the United States and European countries, which were stored there, have been destroyed,” the spokesperson said. of the Russian Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov.
No civilian evacuations
For the second day in a row, there is no humanitarian corridor for the evacuation of civilians from combat zones in Ukraine on Monday, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced on Telegram.
Negotiations with the Russian army are “long and complex”, especially for the devastated city of Mariupol, largely under Moscow’s control, and other localities where fighting is taking place, she said, adding that “The Russian occupiers keep blocking and bombing the humanitarian routes. Therefore, for security reasons, it was decided not to open any corridors”.
Russian troops in Kreminna
On Monday, Russian soldiers entered the town of Kreminna in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian governor of the Lugansk region, Sergey Gaidai, said on his Facebook page. “The Russian army has already entered there, with a huge amount of war material (…) Our defenders have retreated to new positions,” he added.
Kreminna, which has about 18,000 inhabitants, is about 50 kilometers northeast of Kramatorsk, the Ukrainian capital of Donbass and one of Moscow’s targets in this region.
Kharkiv again under the bombs
Russian bombardments on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city in the northeast of the country, killed at least three people on Monday, local authorities said. According to the regional prosecutor’s office, a shell that fell at the end of the morning on a children’s playground in a residential area killed two people.
The director of an emergency medical aid center, Viktor Zabachta, for his part indicated to the Interfax-Ukraine agency that a strike on a humanitarian aid distribution center had left one dead and six injured.
The day before, bombings on this city had already killed six people and injured 24, according to the latest report provided by the governor’s office.
In Mariupol, the soldiers do not want to surrender
Due to its geographical location and its access to the Sea of Azov, the port city of Mariupol is strategic for Russian troops, which explains why it was one of the first targets from the start of the conflict. Even though the fighting intensified and the Ukrainian soldiers lost more and more ground – they would still have around 20% of the city, according to the deputy mayor – they refused to surrender.
They will fight “to the end”, assured the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in his daily video this Sunday evening. According to Sergeï Orlov, deputy mayor of Mariupol, there remain, in parallel, “between 100 and 130,000 civilians” stuck in the city, he explained on BFMTV this Monday morning. “They lack food and they lack water” but “Russia will not give them the opportunity to leave”, assured the elected official.